The papers in this collection derive from the Annual Symposia on Arabic Linguistics held in Stanford (1999) and Berkeley (2000). The selection is noteworthy for its diversity of approach, and for a noticeable broadening of the kinds of questions that are being asked and the kind of data being gathered about Arabic in various settings. These papers cover many aspects of Arabic linguistic research, from models of language acquistion, to the borrowing of discourse patterns, and the use of 'secret' languages.